Page 108 of Katya and the Young God

ANDREW OLLO (11:19 AM): 3 teenage girls missing in last 24 hours. A Vamp in the area is dead, and maybe a werewolf.

Katya raises an eyebrow at her phone, and Pieter’s arms briefly tighten around her.

ANDREW OLLO (11:21 AM): Can u go to Longmont office and check out? Ill send address w link.

And there’s a tightening behind Katya’s shoulders, a slow growing horror, because...because what if this isn’t a trap. What if there’s something there she actually might need to take care of, actually might need her help, actually might need her to be there.

Pieter reads it in her face. “It can’t be that easy to pull you,” he says, his voice rasping. “I haven’t seen such an obvious trap...ever.”

Katya exhales, slow, before sitting down on the bloody floral couch, her mind racing. “Let me check some things.”

A quick Google search turns up an article on the missing teens, the entire Longmont press in furor over the rash of disappearances. They’re all great students in extracurriculars, not the type to just leave.

One left behind a bloody car.

Pieter reads over her shoulder, his eyebrows drawing up even more, as she clicks to another article, talking about the mysterious and pagan style death of a known businessman, getting staked in the heart.

It’s all too clean, it’s all too nice, but...

“Jesus Christ you’re going to go, aren’t you?” Pieter says, voice wry but not judgmental. “You’re gonna put yourself in danger for this.”

It’s what she put herself in danger over every day at her old job, and her heart pangs.

K (11:28 AM): Is there anyone else who can go?

It feels as sinful as anything she’s done, and her mouth goes dry as Ollo types back.

ANDREW OLLO (11:31 AM): I can’t get ahold of Feketer, he usually helps out there.

Pieter’s eyebrows fall down as soon as the Pixie gets named. “I hope he ran,” he says, dark. “I hope he ran and leaves this state.”

Katya squints at the messages, then leans back, looking at Pieter. “Think you can write some protection runes on me?”

He tilts his head at her, and the fact that he doesn’t immediately deny her gives her a little bit of joy, a little happiness in the pit of her stomach. “What do you have in mind?”

“If it’s a trap, if it’s some way to get me in a location and put pressure on me, they think I’ll charge in. Go anyways.”

“Like you did the mountain.”

She smiles at him, showing her teeth. “Exactly.”

“So what, we kit you up with protection and weaponry and hope you can shoot your way out of it?” He asks, but the mental math is obviously running through his head. “Hope they don’t take you in and torture Selene’s location out of you?”

“Either Not-Thomas—" Pieter snorts at his name, but Katya keeps going, “—did something to protect this place or they’re far stupider than we think.” She pauses, letting his words catch up to her. “I don’t give up information under torture!”

“That is,” he starts, “completely not my point.”

And she knows it isn’t. “So I go in, looking exactly like they think I will, and they won’t question anything. I can give them the entire wrong information, send them on a trail they won’t even think to double check.”

“And you can see where they think she is, what they think they can get, what they’re planning,” he finishes. Begrudgingly, but he finishes. “I hate it.” He pushes himself up, idly going to the Sharpies in the glass by the kitchen counter, then sitting back next to her.

“It’s not great, but I can get more information than if we just stay here and wait,” she says, shedding her flannel and presenting him her forearm.

He strokes the soft skin on the inside of her wrist, and she shivers at the delicious touch.

K (11:37 AM): I can be there in four hours, I’m in Wyoming right now.

“Clever,” he murmurs at her, uncapping the Sharpie and sketching out the most basic of protection runes against her skin. “If it’s not a trap, they’ll know to divert people, and if it is, they’re gonna start searching through another state.

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